She couldn’t hold that dark gaze. “I did once,” she reminded him bitterly.
“Yes, I know,” he replied. His eyes sketched her profile narrowly. “I left scars, didn’t I?”
She shifted her thin shoulders uncomfortably, wishing she’d never said anything in the first place. “Everyone’s entitled to be foolish once or twice.”
“I’ve wondered a lot since then what might have happened if I’d laid down with you in that soft hay,” he said quietly, deliberately slowing his pace as they approached the rest of his family.
Her heart pounded erratically. “I’d have fought you,” she said, her tone soft and challenging.
He looked down at her and a strange smile turned up his chiseled mouth at one corner. “Would you?” he asked in a deep, silky voice. “Do you have enough experience to know what it does to a man when a desirable woman fights him?”
“You seem to think I’ve slept with half the men in New York, so you tell me,” she shot back.
He cocked an eyebrow. “I don’t know what to think about you,” he admitted. “Just when I’m sure I’ve got you figured out, you throw me another curve. I’m beginning to think I need to take a much closer look at you, Teddi bear.”
She glared up at him. “Don’t call me that.”
“Don’t you like it?” he taunted. “You’re small and soft and cuddly.”
She blushed like a teenager, and hated her helpless reaction to his teasing. It was just like before. All he wanted was to make her crawl. Well, he wasn’t going to do it this trip.
“Don’t think you’ll ever get to cuddle me,” she said shortly.
“And I wouldn’t bet on that, if I were you.” He pulled a cigarette from his shirt pocket and lit it while he watched her. “You were begging me for it in the barn that morning.”
She shivered at the memory of her weakness and her eyes closed briefly. “You know a lot,” she countered.
“What did you expect, that I spent all my time with the cattle?” he taunted. “I know what to do with a woman, young Teddi, as you damned near found out. I can lose my head, if I’m tempted enough. You brought that about, and we both know it. Those eye-catching little glances, those low-cut dresses, those come-and-kiss-me looks you were giving me—”
“I can’t possibly tell you how sorry I am about the whole thing,” she ground out. “Could we please just forget it? You’re safe from me this trip, I wouldn’t flirt with you if my life depended on it.”
“That might be better,” he murmured dryly. “I live in constant fear of being seduced by one of you wild city girls.”
Now that did sound like flirting, but before she could be sure, they were within earshot of the others.
“The end of the world must be near,” Mary Devereaux laughed. “Are my eyes going bad, or are you two actually not arguing for once?” She eyed her son closely. “And did I actually see you smile at her?”
King cocked an eyebrow at her. “Muscle spasm,” he replied without cracking a smile.
“Sure,” Mary laughed. She reached out and hugged Teddi affectionately. “It’s so good to have you here, Teddi. What with King away most of the time, and Jenna’s sudden interest in ranch management,” she added with a pointed glance at her daughter, “I’ve been looking forward to a very lonely summer.” She stared at the young girl. “Teddi, you aren’t suddenly going to develop an interest in ranch management, are you?”
Teddi burst out laughing. “Oh, no, I don’t think so.”
“Thank goodness,” Mary sighed. “Shall we go? I could use a cup of coffee. King, I suppose you’ll drive?”
“When was the last time I let you drive me anywhere?” he mused, leading the way to the car.
“Let me think.” His parent frowned. “You were six and I had to take you to the dentist when you got into it with little Sammy Blain...”
Teddi hid a smile. She linked her arm with Jenna’s and brought up the rear. It was nice to be part of a family, even for a little while.
Chapter Three
Teddi’s room overlooked the Rockies. It was done in blue and white, with lacy eyelet curtains at the windows and a canopied bed. This was where she always slept when she came to Gray Stag—her own little corner of the old château.
She wondered who had occupied the matching room in the original home in Burgundy. One of King’s ancestors had copied the design of his wife’s family home to keep that grieving lady from getting attacks of homesickness when they’d settled in Calgary. The original château dated to the eighteenth century. This one was barely a hundred years old, but it had a charm all its own.
She opened the window and breathed the flower-scented air. Everything seemed so much cleaner in Canada, so much bigger. Despite King’s hostility, it was nice to be here again. Mary and Jenna more than made up for King.
Her eyes went to the soft bed. King. She remembered a night she’d spent at Gray Stag when she was seventeen, during summer vacation.
She’d been fairly terrified of King back then, nervous and uncertain when he came near with his cruel taunts. She’d never understood his dislike—she’d done nothing to him to provoke it.
But that night there was a thunderstorm, violent as only mountain thunderstorms can be. Teddi’s parents had gone down in a commercial airliner on a night like this, and in her young mind she still connected disaster with violent storms. She was crying, soft little whimpers that shouldn’t have been audible above the raging thunder.
But King had suddenly opened the door and come in, still fully dressed from helping work cattle in the flash flooding. His shirt was damp, carelessly unbuttoned to reveal a mat of hair and bronzed muscle that had drawn Teddi’s eyes like a magnet.
He eased down onto the bed and took the frightened, weeping girl into his big arms. He murmured soft, comforting words that she didn’t understand while he cradled her against his warm, damp body, his heart beating heavily under the cheek that lay on his broad chest. He held her until the tears and the thunder passed, and then he laid her back down on the pillows with a strangely tender smile.
“Okay, now?” he asked softly.
“Yes, thank you,” she replied uneasily.
He stood there, looking down at her with strange dark eyes while she stared back, her eyes fixed on the sight he made, his shirt unbuttoned to the waist...it was the first time she’d been alone with a man in her bedroom at that hour of the night, and her fear must have shown. Because he suddenly turned away with a muffled curse and was gone. After that night, he was even colder, and she worked even harder at avoiding him. Something had happened while they stared at each other so intensely. She still wasn’t sure what it had been, but she remembered vividly the sensations she felt when his eyes had dropped to the uncovered bodice of her gown and traced deliberately every soft line of her young breasts under the half-transparent material. The memory was like a drawn sword between them, along with all King’s imagined grievances against her.
There was a sharp knock at the door and Jenna peeked her head around it. “Come down and have something to eat,” she said. “Mother’s carving up a ham.”
“Isn’t Miss Peake here anymore?” Teddi asked as she joined her friend, remembering warmly Miss Peake’s little kindnesses over the years.
“Our saintly housekeeper is visiting her sister for a few days.” Jenna grinned. “She’d just die if she was here to see the size of the slices mother’s getting off that ham. Mother eats like a bird, you know. Poor King!”